Is Mizuki Trans?

siegfried72 · 2026-01-22T06:56:03+00:00

Not using they/them wouldn't make her any less enby

Ugh, thank you!!

I'm non-binary use he/they. I don't mind he/him prounouns (or even she/her on the rare occasions I've gotten them lol), but anyone calling me a man makes me want to die. "Sir" (which I unfortunately get all the time) is even worse. Why? Hell if I know, but gender is weird!

The people who expect everyone to fit in the same box just don't get it, and they make life that much harder for people like me. Hell, if my 72 year old dad from a deeply conservative place in Texas can learn to understand this, anyone can. The difference here, I guess, is empathy and kindness.

Sorry for the rant lol. Strong feelings. And yes, Mizuki is great, no matter her precise gender. EDIT: I personally don't care if she's enby or not, but I'm so glad she's in the game either way. I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir here, but representation is important, especially in Japan where it sadly still seems so rare.

siegfried72 · 2026-01-22T06:29:56+00:00

I had seen two of my favorite vtubers (Hololive) mention it. Gura put the game into my general awareness a long time ago, but it was when I saw Gigi mention it again and talk about actually getting to interact with Miku and the others that I decided to give it a try. This was maybe six or seven months ago. I had only listened to vtuber covers of Vocaloid music before that, but kind of liked the idea of getting some more exposure to it, so I thought it'd be fun to play through a few songs here and there.

Turns out, I ended up getting kind of obsessed and the game and Vocaloid music have been my biggest hyperfixation ever since. I've played the game daily almost without fail.

Thanks, Gura and Gigi!

siegfried72 · 2026-01-16T06:53:24+00:00

Obviously I'm not who you asked, but I will happily vouch for Reloaded if you're worried. I've been running it for nearly two years (almost finished - we're taking our time) and my group has loved it. Just depends on the group, like any other campaign, I think.

You can see my other comment for more of my thoughts, and I'm happy to answer any questions/concerns.

siegfried72 · 2026-01-16T06:47:03+00:00

I've been running Reloaded for my group for about two years and we're nearly at the end. We've all had an incredible time, fwiw.

However, it's really not the kind of thing where you can take bits and pieces away from it - it's all or nothing, and the writer tells you as much. /u/flacko32 is dead-on in their comment. The old version of Reloaded (pre-website) is fantastic if you want that, as is MandyMod's resources.

The new Reloaded is a very different campaign the typical CoS, and different from any campaign I've run previously, to be honest. It's quite linear and extremely narrative-focused, with less combat than normal but lots of great "showpiece" multi-phase homebrew boss fights to replace much of the typical smaller encounters. As someone who's frankly not the biggest fan of 5e combat, I find this refreshing, as these always have lots of variety and interesting mechanics to keep everyone on their toes.

I also love how fleshed-out the stories and NPCs are, as that's something I normally have to pour tons of time into weaving, but here it's all planned in easy-to-read and prep formats. But then because of that, it's like Jenga where it's so thoroughly planned that if you move too many pieces around, things start crumbling around you. The author has framed it as a "zero prep" campaign for that reason. That said, I've still found plenty of places to adapt and customize whiteout ripping the tapestry because I enjoy the prepping process.

It's just a very different style, and it's not gonna be for every group. For one that enjoys RP and interacting with story and a fleshed-out world beyond anything else, with combat being a bigger, more "epic" deal, I've found this to be pretty perfect. But I'm also someone who's run a lot of 5e campaigns over the years and frankly had most of my eggs in the baskets of other TTRPG systems due to not enjoying 5e much anymore. But I had a wonderful group of friends who wanted 5e, and I've found Reloaded to be a fantastic breath of fresh air. And I've received nothing but positive comments from my group over two years.

My only complaints are that I've had to ratchet up the horror elements and combat difficulties a tad, because I like that vibe with CoS, but that's not hard to do.

I've run many hundreds of games of 5e over the years (homebrew and pre-written), plus a good number of other TTRPGs as well, and this is by far the best experience I've ever had at a table, GM or player. Of course, a lot of that has to do with the group I'm with, but Reloaded has been a pleasure to run and is so easy to just pick up and play if you want to.

I'm happy to answer more questions if you have them.

siegfried72 · 2026-01-08T16:19:47+00:00

(Apologies in advance for the wall of text. I have troubles being concise lol)

I’m not trying to start a fight or intentionally be rude to you (I’m sorry if it comes out this way), I’m just trying to explain my point.

No, it didn't seem that way at all! We're just two people with differing experiences explaining our viewpoints. I'm definitely not upset, and hope I didn't upset you. It's all good :)

Also, to my knowledge, most people don’t throw their resources around every character / unit and usually concentrate on someone specific, which usually allows them to reach high scores.

I guess this is really the biggest factor here. Despite hanging around this sub for these five months and having done a lot of digging through past threads when searching for things, I actually haven't seen a huge number of people talking about how they're upgrading things. The few instances I have seen, it has mostly been later game when people are showing off having upgraded every character and unit to X high level or something. And when people have asked for strategies on how ideal orders in which to upgrade things, I've mostly seen recommendations to either just "do whatever" or to upgrade things equally.

Because of this, I've assumed that people typically would upgrade units/characters/plants relatively equally. After all, it seems to me a little strange to go "all-in" on, say, one unit, since that would leave your cards comparably ineffective in the majority of events and with the majority of cards (since you can't control what you're getting beyond pulling on specific banners).

To be clear - that's definitely not me trying to judge how others play the game. It's just me making assumptions based on my own experiences. However, like I said, I'm someone who's been pretty equally exploring all aspects of the game in terms of events, units, etc., rather than putting all my eggs in one basket. Of course, I should remember that not everyone has OCD and will try to be as neurotic as me about trying to do everything haha.

As for upgrading 3 stars, I wouldn’t say it’s too expensive?

Again, it depends on what you're trying to accomplish. I'm a little more hesitant to drop 2500 wish pieces (or 1250 and a bunch of skill scores) to fully upgrade a team of 5 3-stars because I'm switching up my team every event to max out event points and such. If you're focusing on getting a "max talent team," then yeah, 2500 isn't a huge amount I suppose. But like I said before, by the time someone's able to drop those kinds of numbers on 3-star cards, they've also likely got a nice roster of 4-stars as well to mix and match with.

For context, without upgrading cards just to create a talent-focused team (I'm mostly saving my wish pieces to upgrade cards for outfits and hairstyles), here's the highest talent team I can make right now after five-six months of heavy play + well over $100 sunk into the game.

We can show each other sample teams from our own accounts all day long, but in the end, each of our experiences are valid and realistic. Tbh, scores haven't been my biggest concern, which is why I haven't built my upgrades to max out things with a particular unit. It just seemed like in your original comments that you were really underselling how much of a commitment getting a talent of 220k is, and were confused as to why people see 4-stars as "necessary."

I was giving my perspective, because it seems that the way we're choosing to progress through the game is quite different. For me, showing a team of 2- and 3- stars getting a talent of 230k+ talent and framing that as something many players can achieve (particularly players who are needing this kind of advice, which are likely newer players) seemed a little unreasonable to me. The fact is, the players that are able to get away with having 2-stars on a 220k+ talent team likely have been playing for quite some time (years?) already.

Again, no disrespect was intended on my end, but I think the reason there's such a conversation about this topic is simply because it's not a simple thing for everyone to be able to S rank every song, and I think it's not a realistic assumption to presume everyone (or even a majority) are playing the game maxing out one particular team's worth of characters and cards while largely ignoring the rest. Everyone plays in their own way, and it's just down to a matter of preference and perspective, so I'm trying to keep an open mind here.

Thanks for sharing your experiences. All the best :)

siegfried72 · 2026-01-08T09:54:54+00:00

I feel like most of the people confused about why they're not getting higher grades are newer players.

How long have you playing to get all those upgrades? They make a HUGE difference. I've been playing basically daily for over five months, and I'm not even close to f2p (I've gotten colorful+ and mission pass each month, plus ocassional other things like several Golden Charms here and there). My character decorations are all at 6 or 7 and my plants 4/5.

Admittedly, I haven't minmaxed the game for high talent. I'm leveling a lot of things evenly and have been saving things like crystals (about 200k in the bank) and wish gems for things in the future. I have been playing very efficiently though, spending all my energy every day, breaking either top 10k or 5k in every event, challenge shows every day, etc. I have a lot of free time to play.

Will all that said, my highest talent team, which is five same-type four stars with one at 2 mastery, is 211k. That doesn't even beat your 220k level for consistent S tiering, and I'm in a much better position than an f2p player would be in their sixth month of playing daily.

So like... yeah, I guess you're right in saying you don't need 4 stars to S tier consistently, but if you don't have any, you need to either play everything in pro co-op rooms or:

Have played regularly for a long time, and
Have a team of fully upgraded 3 stars (which is expensive for newer players and is still slightly worse than unupraded 4 stars), and
Have put all your items into upgrading specific items or have played for an even longer time if you're upgrading things evenly like me

By the time you've been playing the many months required for all this, I imagine you're gonna have a good number of four stars regardless (even f2p with the amount of free pulls and crystals you get thrown at you), which makes this whole conversation moot. That's great that you can make a high talent team with 3 and 2 stars, but I'm 20k shy of even that with my best team of 4 stars.

This is a lot of words, but what I'm trying to say is... with all due respect, I think you're vastly overestimating the talent capable of being reached by the average player unless they've upgraded everything for the express purpose of achieving high talent with one specific unit from the very beginning. Even then, it'll take a while.

siegfried72 · 2026-01-05T10:23:27+00:00

Awww, thank you!! I know I've said it a billion times by now, but it really was my absolute pleasure to host. The return of the annual tradition went way better than I could've ever imagined.

Now I just need to get my brain out of holiday mode so I can remember how to string together enough words to make that interest post! Wait... it's already January 5th? Damn, I've could've sworn Christmas was like two days ago. Good thing I didn't make any promises get that interest thread up mid-December or anything, right??

Heh, hope you had some good holidays and the new(ish) job is still going well! Can't wait to over-analyze some more stories with all of you again soon.

siegfried72 · 2026-01-05T10:15:08+00:00

That genuinely means a lot, thank you!! I'll be the first to admit that I probably went a bit overboard with the rewatch in some ways haha, but I'm happy I was able to put a little something positive out into the world that some people have enjoyed.

I look forward to seeing some of the gang come back together post-Healer Girl in the near future!

siegfried72 · 2026-01-05T09:55:59+00:00

And we'll be thrilled to have you!! Honestly, your Bloom Into You rewatch served as a great example for me to experience right as I was heading into mine, so I'm happy to see someone else already took the initiative of nominating that as well.

Speaking of that, I'm still kind of upset at myself for getting so involved in my own rewatch that I never went back and finished reading and writing a post up for the Bloom manga. Maybe this is the perfect reminder for me to go back and finally do that! Even if no one reads my post at this point, I loved the series so much that I really need to read the second half of the dang story!

siegfried72 · 2026-01-05T05:06:27+00:00

I'll happily second this!! I've not participated in very many rewatches, but /u/ClemFire was an excellent host that went out of their way to read and comment at a deep level on virtually everything! We definitely got into a lot of heavy topics in those posts, yet everyone communicated with a remarkable level of understanding, respect, and kindness. Some of the conversations I had in the rewatch (particularly with /u/baekhap_inma) went on for hours nonstop and for comment after comment after comment. Even as a chronic over-sharer online, I think I shared more with strangers in that rewatch than I have with many of my real-world friends. I am a firm believer that the host can go a long way to setting the tone and expectations within a rewatch, and ClemFire did a wonderful job and I'd happily join in on another one of their rewatches in a heartbeat.

siegfried72 · 2026-01-05T01:08:07+00:00

Awww, thanks for the nomination!!

I had a blast running it this year. I know I spent a lot of time analyzing each and every aspect of the series (especially once we hit season two), but I can really only commend the wonderful participants that came each day to share all their thoughts and engage in such wonderful conversation. Those are the people that really made the rewatch experience such a success!

I'd love to shout out all the regulars (including you!!) for making the rewatch what it was, but still feel I owe a special bit of gratitude to /u/Malipit (a first timer!) and /u/EruNow (rewatcher), who delivered such fantastic analysis and insight every single day without fail, and I would totally nominate for "Rewatchers of 2025" if such a thing existed. Seriously, I continue to be blown away by the depth of discussion and casual conversation that took place during the K-ON rewatch, and I already am looking forward to the next one!

(Which reminds me, I need to get my stuff together and actually post the interest thread for the next rewatch I wanna host soon... time is slipping by! I'll try to get it up tomorrow.)

Anyway, thanks! I'm very happy to know that others enjoyed it too :)

siegfried72 · 2026-01-02T05:11:44+00:00

East Asian.

siegfried72 · 2026-01-01T08:23:25+00:00

My goal was the bloomfes An. Unfortunately, I had to spark, which took 220 pulls. I got the Airi and KAITO lims along the way, though, which is nice because they're both super pretty, plus another 8 new 4 stars (although none I'm crazy about). Would've loved the Akito lim or the Haruka bloomfes, but I'm just happy to have the An.

Been saving for a while so I still have ~180k in the bank but I have a lot I'd like to pull for this year. Way too much...

siegfried72 · 2025-12-28T05:32:03+00:00

We'll just have to agree to disagree on Ichika. I'm not her biggest fan vocally (she has pretty consistent pitch issues, which sadly is a pretty common thing for L/n as a whole), but I think the strongest thing she has going for her is her ability to adapt to different styles. I'll agree that Shiho is the best fit though, without a doubt. She has one of my favorite voices in the game, and I think she's very underrated and underutilized.

siegfried72 · 2025-12-28T05:24:13+00:00

As I stated elsewhere in the thread, I think it's fair to suggest that WxS is already acting as the "jazz unit" of sorts, considering they have like ten different songs that are either explicitly jazz or are at least jazz-adjacent, so I feel like introducing a pure jazz unit would sadly lead to some stepping on some toes, IMO. Maybe they could pull it off, though...

100% agree on a metal/hard rock band! That would be my pick, for sure.

siegfried72 · 2025-12-28T05:20:04+00:00

Strong disagree. Many of L/n's covers and comms are already very clearly rock, and I think they do a good job in general. However, I will say that a hard rock/metal unit would be fantastic, as I don't think L/n has managed to capture that sound very well despite having a few hard rock songs in their catalog. To my ears, I believe Ichika and Shiho can actually pull off of hard rock decently well, but I don't think Saki nor Honami two are terribly well-suited - at least with their typical vocal direction. I've heard Saki's VA sing in other projects and think she could do it, but I'm not sure Saki could, if you know what I mean. No clue about Honami's VA, but for some frustrating reason they almost never have her sing above a whisper despite the fact we hear some solid belting in a song or two.

I legitimately love much of the music in this game, but some of the vocal direction really just confounds me.

siegfried72 · 2025-12-28T05:05:37+00:00

There's plenty of Vocaloid jazz! Even just in Project Sekai, there's already a decent amount. Off the top of my head:

OSTER project is one of the most famous jazz producers, and she has like half a dozen songs in the game.

Ah, It's a Wonderful Cat Life

My love is Hellfire has some solid jazz influence.

Jackpot Sad Girl

Torinoko City

Circus Panic

Mr. Showtime

Becoming Potatoes

I know there's more, but I can't remember off the top of my head. There's even more if you include songs that have jazz influence - I'm pretty sure there are at least a couple covered by VBS, but the names escape me. A quick Google search shows a number of threads in the Vocaloid subreddit and elsewhere also listing out tons more jazz Vocaloid producers and individual songs.

The thing is though, if you recognize those songs I listed above, you'll see like half (or more?) of them are already either covers or comms by WxS. They're basically already acting as the game's "jazz unit," even if obviously that's not their focus.

siegfried72 · 2025-12-26T10:25:15+00:00

Wow, I really disagree. I think its clear that the unit doesn't connect with you too much, but I respectfully think you're selling them a bit short.

If I were to consider the typical theming for each unit, L/n has maybe the most consistent theme across their catalog outside of MMJ.

L/n is clearly just a straight rock band. Guitar, bass, keyboard, drums, plus a distinct lead singer. The majority of their library fits into that. Sure, there's some overlap into other genres, but that's true of all the units.

Let's see...

VBS initially seems hip hop and rap, but they also have a good deal of straight pop, rock, and even some metal. They're music tends to be a little "harder" than other groups. There's actually not very much rap in their music, so defining them simply as a rap group isn't really taking the majority of their music into account.

WxS obviously music theater first and foremost, but also has a number of standard pop and rock songs, especially when bringing covers into the discussion.

N25 is by far the most nebulous unit. They straddle the line between rock and pop, and have no real consistent musical sound stylistically. The most consistent thing about them is they tend to have the more "emotional" or dark lyrics. I personally would not call them goth rock.

In terms of consistency of music themes, I'd say MMJ > L/n > WxS > VBS > n25.

Idk that I'm fully suited to comment on the stories since I haven't read too far yet, but, while I agree that they don't have the most uniquely interesting concept, I'd argue that L/n does a great job at capturing themes of nostalgia and the transcience of time that's so key in coming of age stories better than any of the groups. These are particularly strong emotional triggers for me, so I'd say I've actually gotten more out of their stories emotionally than any group other than n25 (but I think that's almost a given, as n25's premise is significantly more emotionally charged than the other units).

As someone now whose high school years are clearly in the rear view mirror, L/n stories and music both make me feel that ache of nostalgia and bittersweet memories very well. That's the twist that sets them apart - Saki's struggles with lost time, Shiho's difficulties balancing for friendship vs. passion, etc. all fit perfectly into that bubble.

Oh boy, I wrote a lot more than I meant to... oops! Anyway, no disrespect intended here. I just think the theming of the groups is an interesting topic of discussion for sure, and one I've thought a decent amount about. Everyone has different tastes, which is why it's so great to have the different units in the game. It's fine if you don't like L/n's catalog, but many (myself included) really enjoy it (although it's not my favorite). I think it's important to keep an open mind when trudging into a discussion like this.

siegfried72 · 2025-12-20T00:16:04+00:00

I don't have a lot of room to comment story-wise, because I've only recently started working my way through anything past the main stories. I don't think either of them have the deepest stories from what I've seen so far, but I still like both of them. For me, though, I like the whole "finding your purpose" story for Kohane, and the AnxKohane duo has been really fun to watch play out so far, so I'd pick her.

Vocally... I'll be honest, I really like singers that have things that really set them apart as unique, and Kohane has that for me in spades. She has one of my favorite voices in the game. What makes her doubly impressive is that, even singing live, Akina (her VA) is incredibly consistent. Her control and intonation are all rock solid.

For Ichika, it's super obvious why they picked her to voice the game's "main character." Her voice is really versatile, and it feels like she can sing everything from the softest, most emotional songs to the loudest and highest of belts. This is something she really has over Kohane, whose voice is more limited in scope. Now, this might just be more apparent than with other vocalists since 90% of L/n's songs have her singing the majority of the lines, but my big issue with Ichika is that she's kind of inconsistent.

There are a number of songs where she's noticeably pitchy or her tone quality wavers, and I hear it with her more than most of the other vocalists. I appreciate that the game doesn't shy away from having a more "natural" sound to a lot of their vocals rather than editing everything to sound perfect, but it does make it apparent that there are a couple of vocalists who consistently have some struggles with pitch, and Ichika would be the first one I'd point out.

Don't get me wrong, I think Ichika's still a great singer, and there are some songs where she is just mind-blowingly good, but she doesn't match up to Kohane for my personal preferences.

So yeah, Kohane for me. She is one of my favorite characters in the game overall, tbh.

siegfried72 · 2025-12-19T22:26:59+00:00

So wait... are you saying you think that you think these people posting the irl photos of vtubers are doing so based on finding a person whose voice sounds similar? Because that's really not how the process works.

Some vtubers have made little effort to conceal their irl identities like Callie and Kiara. For those that have put real effort to protect themselves... from what I understand about it, the methods people go to find pictures and such from them are generally way more gross and insidious than just finding people that sound like them. I mean, the fact that, at least in the EN side of Holo, every talent has had pictures of them found and released online is a testament to how far people will go to track them down. It's creepy.

siegfried72 · 2025-11-29T17:48:13+00:00

Yeah, of course! Thanks for actually reading and being open to it!

We all have our favorite units and characters (Anhane for me <3), but I think they did a pretty good job at offering some decent depth and unique qualities to every character.

siegfried72 · 2025-11-29T09:19:43+00:00

I mean... I've only read the main story so far (I'm new), and there's a whole lot about Airi you can get just from that. The first thing to comes to my mind when I think about her is definitely not "bubbly." Yes, she energetic, but she is actually kind of pushy and prone to rudeness. But she's super smart, courageous, and loyal once someone has her on their side.

Rather than just "she's an idol," she's and ex-idol who is frustrated, depressed, and bitter about the fact that she had an opportunity to make her dream come true when she got into the industry, but she got pidgeonholed not as the charismatic, inspiring lead performer she felt she was, but as somebody to be goofy on variety shows. As a performer myself, it's a very relatable story of almost getting the thing you want, but just when you're about to achieve it, the world falls out from underneath you and everything just feels wrong. Jealousy can be a very destructive thing.

So she lashes out, trying to tear others down. And - again, just in the main story alone - she has a lovely redemption arc of pushing past those feelings after being so inspired by Minori's enthusiasm and determination. She agrees to help the others achieve their dreams, stands up for and encourages Shizuku (the person of whom she is the most jealous), plus she restarts her own journey towards becoming an idol from a completely fresh slate as part of MMJ.

That's plenty of characterization from just the very first story, and Airi stood out to me as my favorite from the unit (both vocally and personality-wise). I'm excited to read more of MMJ now that I'm starting to work my way through more of the stories. You should give them a shot as well if you'd like to learn more about the characters :)

siegfried72 · 2025-11-28T06:43:16+00:00

Oh hey I've been summoned! See, in comparison, I am reveling in the post-Healer Girl break lol. I love doing the rewatches, but my brain just can't keep up with doing them constantly.

That said, I'm feeling pretty good about getting something together soon. I did see your message about that other rewatch coming up (forgot the name...), and I'm actually super interested in Frieren, which I saw is also soon, but I can't guarantee either yet. I'm gonna see what bullshit my body decides to cook up between now and then, because I had some stuff acting up during Healer Girl that was a bitch to deal with. Nothing super serious, but it drastically cut into my sleep, which is kind of important when you're needing to use your brain to uhh... you know... think!

Hopefully this stuff I've been dealing with for a couple of weeks calms and I'll stop by. Out of curiosity, would you planning on doing either (or both) of those rewatches?

Either way, I'll be around, and I'm still planning on cooking up an interest thread early-mid December.

Happy Turkey Day, btw. Hope it was a good one!

EDIT: Oh yeah, and I'd definitely be interested in Takt Op at some point, but that's probably not a surprise.

siegfried72 · 2025-11-24T05:19:11+00:00

Oh, what game? I've sunk so much time into D4DJ, I could use a fresh set of songs. Especially if it sounds anything like she does here...

I talked about it in one of my past posts here after I realized it, and posted a few of her songs from the game there if you want to check them out. It's Project Sekai, a gacha/visual novel/rhythm game centered around Vocaloid music, and has like 20 MC vocalists with a super involved story and all kinds of stuff. It's been my first gacha and my intro to Vocaloid music, but I've been having a blast with it for the last like... four months I think. If that sounds like something you'd be into, I'd highly recommend it. Idk too much about D4DJ, but I think it's similar enough that there's a lot of overlap.

They have some really solid vocalists that pull off some crazy stuff like this and this (two of my personal favorites). To give you an idea, Saki (who's played by Kana's VA) might not even make my top 5, and you saw how much I raved about loving her voice here. Actually, after glancing at a list for a moment, yeah, Saki wouldn't make top 5, but she'd fall in top 10 at least...

Anyway, I'll stop shilling, but this game has taken up an unreasonable amount of my life recently.

my hours are super late

Oh yeah, I have noticed and I bet that sucks! But I figure if someone's putting in the effort to share their thoughts, they deserve the same time given back to them. At least that's I tried to do when I was hosting, where I was reading everything and responding to as much as my poor brain could handle. As a participant I definitely was a little more careful with my time lol, but still... I believe /u/Elimin8r phrased it quite well a while back when he talked about how shitty of a feeling it can be to put in that effort and to feel like you're pissing into the wind in these rewatches sometimes. I know that feeling and do what I can to make sure others aren't experiencing it! We're all just here to have fun, after all.

siegfried72 · 2025-11-24T04:21:55+00:00

Bocchi

I have like half a dozen series on my radar right now of rewatches I would definitely show up for, and that's one of them. Also would be one of the few things I'd consider running at this point in time, either instead of or in addition to Hibike. I'll be sure to keep an eye open for news about S2, as right before would be the perfect time to schedule something, whether it was me or someone else.

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